A Safe Place to Think About Dangerous Ideas

I am a documentary film director. Subjects of my films have included love, sex, 9/11, indigenous fisheries, hurricanes, refugees, HIV/AIDS orphans, and visualization of God. I am best known for the Real People, Real Life, Real Sex series of documentaries that simultaneously explore the vital role of sexual pleasure in committed relationships and the problematic place of explicit sexuality in cinema. This is my "Safe" blog.

I was an “early adopter” (another awful phrase) of the internet. I pretty much learned to talk to women on the Internet (how much easier to construct a witty and solicitous response when communication isn’t quite synchronous), I met my wife on the Internet, and have set and received messages that (apparently) mark the sender or receiver or both as adolescent or foolhardy or just plain stupid. (Also, apparently it is still horrifying to contemplate that a woman might very much enjoy being on the receiving end of such missives, and the proper public stance is disgust and/or derision.)

I have also learned this.

It is possible to have remarkably mutually satisfying sexual encounters by text or photo or video or phone or even all of the above if your modern multi-tasking mind is up to the task.

It is completely impossible to get your ear scratched, or your hair stroke, or to have a zit popped on your back.

This, I think, sheds some light on the nature of sexual pleasure and intimacy both; and perhaps on the nature of of the relationship between the two of them.